Politicians, activists and content creators from the Highlands on why they have flown the nest to BlueSky
A new name has been on the tip of the tongue of those with a keen eye for social media this past week, as the amphitheatre of micro-blogging was introduced to its latest contender.
Several Highland-based micro-bloggers, including journalists, activists, artists, authors, historians, sportspeople and politicians, have signed up to the upstart social media platform, Bluesky - which many media experts are calling a viable alternative to X (Twitter).
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First launched in October 2021, Bluesky today reports a user count of over 21 million, boasting an average of one million new user signups per day in the past week.
Highland MSPs Maree Todd, Emma Roddick and Jamie Halcro Johnston are among a long list of Scottish Government ministers to have joined the platform, while author Ian Rankin, singer Julie Fowlis, and football clubs Brora Rangers, Clachnacuddin and Nairn County have also decided to sign up.
Micro-blogging, a social medium designed for quick and typically direct audience interactions, first came to the fore with the launch of Twitter in 2006.
But despite many alternatives popping up over the years, such as Mastadon and most recently, Meta’s Threads, the platform now known as X has remained largely unchallenged as the world’s number one choice.
But the industry-defining social network, which was renamed after Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk acquired the platform for $44 billion in October 2022, has undergone significant change of late.
The introduction of an opt-in, paid subscription service, which offers features such as longer posts and enhanced visibility, as well as a paid-for verification mark, attracted criticism from users and advertisers, concerned that the platform could become vulnerable to the sharing of disinformation.
This was evidenced soon after its introduction when a spoof account with a paid-for verification mark masqueraded as drinks icon Pepsi, before tweeting the line, “Coke is better.”
Many experts now believe that Bluesky - an ‘open source’ alternative - could become a viable competitor to Musk’s X.
The app, accessible via bsky.app is currently top of the free section of the US iPhone App Store, above Meta’s alternative Threads and AI assistant ChatGPT, after a surge of new downloads.
The outcome of the US presidential election, which has since seen Musk named as the man to spearhead President-elect Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency”, has been highlighted as the likely catalyst for Bluesky’s sudden rise in popularity.
Yesterday, Forbes.com described the growing app as a “decentralized alternative for those disillusioned by algorithmic favouritism, toxic discourse and privacy concerns.”
Among those to join Bluesky this week is Highland MSP Maree Todd, Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, who believes that recent changes to the X platform have made it “increasingly more difficult to communicate and connect” with constituents.
She said: "As a politician, it's important to me that I am accessible for my constituents, stakeholders, the media and local activists, and X, over the years, has supported me in this.
“However, recent changes to the platform have made it increasingly more difficult to communicate and connect with these groups effectively.
“I have also noticed a significant rise in the amount of online abuse I have experienced since the platform’s takeover. While scrutiny is part of the role, abuse is never acceptable, and I now find X to be a rather unpleasant online space.
“I am also deeply concerned about the changes to the block function and what this means for online safety overall.
“I am hopeful that Bluesky will provide a more constructive way of engaging with my constituents, similar to how X functioned prior to its takeover.”
Inverness cycling advocate Emily Williams, who also left X to join Bluesky, says that the app’s facility to allow users to bulk-follow accounts using “starter packs” has made her micro-blogging experience less “toxic”.
“It is a much more chilled place than Twitter,” she explains. “Most of the UK active travel chat folk have moved over wholesale, and there are follow lists that make things really easy.
“Finding people was really easy. There are curated lists, so I just bulk-followed two or three active travel ones. There is less toxicity from the known anti-cycling brigade, so far less blocking and deleting!
“It’s just nice having the chronological feed and no adverts, but I do need to do some admin so that I don’t miss stuff.”
Photographer Mel Roger, who lives in Caithness, also made the switch, but she says she’s not quite ready to say goodbye to X just yet.
She said: “I haven’t left X entirely yet as I still require to interact with and send information to users who have not yet moved platform, or have not yet added an additional platform.
“I will run my posts down on X over the next few months though, using Facebook and Bluesky as the main outlets for links. When using X for news at the moment I no longer use the “for you” option, I only use the “following” option.
“That’s seems to have reduced the amount of toxic posts that I see.”
Fiona Macleod from Invergordon, who works for an adult learning charity, says the joy of finding people with shared interests is a big part of Bluesky’s appeal.
“I really love the 'starter packs', making it easier to follow people linked to a topic so you can really tailor your feed to be full of people who are interested in the same thing as you.
“I understand some may say that’s creating an ‘echo chamber’, but I personally think that’s the joy of it.
“It's what we do in real life, we go to groups or take part in activities that interest us, we hang out with people that share interests with us.”
Run by a staff of just 20 full-time employees, Bluesky is currently operated by its CEO, software engineer Jay Graber - but the app was originally conceptualised by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
While Dorsey is no longer on the board of Bluesky, the application’s similarities to X are undeniable.
It’s white butterfly on a blue background bears a striking resemble to "Larry the Bird", the iconic logo for Twitter for over a decade.
The big difference though? Bluesky has been cultivated as an ‘open ecosystem’.
While it might look like a familiar app on the surface, behind the scenes it's CEO says it has been designed to “always put users first.”
Using the AP protocol - a system which emphasizes “decentralization, transparency and user autonomy” - users will have more control over their data and the curation of their feed.
CEO Graber says it can ‘guarantee’ that the platform will always be open to developers to create new ways for their data and information to be used.
One developer has already created a directory of “starter packs” enabling new Bluesky users to hit the ground running by following groups of people they will be most interested in.
Another has created an analytics perform which allows Bluesky users to follow the growth of their account in real-time, or over custom date ranges.
Bluesky has also confirmed to users that their posts will not be used to train generative artificial intelligence (AI).
In a post on November 15, Bluesky confirmed that it only uses AI to “assist in content moderation, in an effort to “triage posts and shield human moderators from harmful content.”
It also uses it in its algorithmic Discover feed, but it says “none of these are Gen AI systems trained on user content.”
But where Bluesky is not quite at the races yet is in having many of the ease-of-use features the likes of Twitter has come to possess after years as the market leader.
On users’ list of “wants” will be tools such as the ability to schedule posts (a handy tool for marketers or content creators) or post longer videos (Bluesky currently limits video to 60 seconds).
Bluesky still has a long way to go in matching up to X’s user count, 21 million is a far cry from X’s estimated 300 million active users worldwide, but if the speed of its growth in November is anything to go by, it appears as though it may be here to stay.
